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TWO POEMS BY GEORGE STANLEY
Men in Black
Exit the Cineplex Odeon, Prince George. A sunny afternoon in August. A path through four imaginary dimensions.
K turns his memory over to J--no, K asks J to burn out his memory (using a hand-held laser-like device) of being ingested by a giant cockroach' an alien trying to steal the galaxy--
K dove headfirst down the bug's gullet to retrieve a favourite gun, then blew it up from inside, thus spattering him & J with fragments, guts & bug-goo--
& of many other such adventures.
2 K's mission--the mission of the Men in Black was to keep the masses oil Earth from noticing they were menaced at every moment by aliens. Now K seeks that oblivion for himself,
to return to the blameless masses, be one of the extras. J freaks when he begins to realize K is taking himself out of the movie.
I would like to get off this path, find a gate left open through some mistake of my own into a flowering desert where nothing connects, where each moment is one of quick understanding, quick forgetfulness.
K will have to come out of retirement (in the sequel). His gun will be of no avail, in a world menaced not by aliens, but by memories.
Sex at 62
His head bent toward me, he demanded, "Lots of kissing, when I make love" --I could let my mouth be devoured, I could be held-- back & forth rocking, from being held-- & his arms, his hands, all over my body, admiring its smoothness. I said, no, yours is smoother, mine is horny, scaly as a reptile--it was in these moments of talk, a gift, a joke, the rocking stopped-- we were falling (through tile bed it seemed, the drugs were wearing off), into some kind of knowledge, unspoken, this physical syntax--
I knew him, then all through the morning as we sucked & kissed & caressed that it was him, got ahead of this jerky demanding need to do sex, when it was him there was no choice, only a face, his rough chin, tousled hair-- then we sat in the Naam eating cereal, his face & neck white, & the black overcoat.
The fear & the demand, to make love, are still here, but the mythology is gone-- the fear & the demand weaker, & desire weaker - but that it is him, that is stronger, that tile night lit up from inside the cab when my arm turned his not- unwilling face to me & the body answered -
he was (is) connected to tile night, the city -
The cock is a torch, a fleshlight, that lights up the body & our bodies light up the night--
through him as I kiss him goodbye at the bus stop, but the face & the words & that it is him, that shines--
What else--oh that he was Stephen & I Leopold & the hours were also rooms-- the bar & the taxi on Hastings & the bedroom-- lighted--moving (losing,g it, touching, knowing, losing it towards the mouth, mouth on mouth,
dark red the lips around, the dots of beard. the eyes that would suddenly open to see me & seductively close,
the lighted-up minutes. desire breaking through fixations, making me glad I'm old, glad they don't hold no more, letting him, body against mine, turning & turning over--but going too fast--doing too much too fast--not loving the time. slower, better next time
never gets any closer
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I can see the end